RDMF4: Agenda Available

Colleagues,

The agenda for the fourth DCC-RIN Research Data Management Forum, taking place in Manchester on 10th and 11th March 2010 with a theme of "Dealing with Sensitive Data: Managing Ethics, Security and Trust", is now online at
http://www.dcc.ac.uk/events/data-forum-2010-march/

Event registration is also available through this page.

Speakers at the event include: Professor Iain Buchan, Professor of Public Health Informatics and Director of NIBHI, University of Manchester; Nicky Tarry, Research Data Transfer Security, Department for Work and Pensions; Kevin Ashley, Head of Digital Archives Development, University of London Computer Centre; Melanie Wright, UK Data Archive Secure Data Service; Veerle Van den Eynden, Research Data Management Support Services, UK Data Archive.

Please note that delegate numbers are strictly limited, so early registration is advised.

Kind regards,

Martin.

Research Data Management Forum 4: registration open

The Digital Curation Centre (DCC) and Research Information Network (RIN) are pleased to announce the rescheduled fourth meeting of the Research Data Management Forum.

This event will have the theme "Dealing with Sensitive Data: managing ethics, security and trust", and will be held on 10th-11th March 2010, at Chancellors Hotel and Conference Centre, Manchester.

Speakers include:

- Nicky Tarry, Research Data Transfer Security, Department for Work and Pensions
- Kevin Ashley, Head of Digital Archives Development, University of London Computer Centre
- Melanie Wright, UK Data Archive Secure Data Service
- Veerle Van den Eynden, Research Data Management Support Services, UK Data Archive

Registration for this event is now open, via http://www.dcc.ac.uk/events/data-forum-2010-march/

Please note that delegate places are limited, so early booking is advised.

Skilling Up to Do Data

Colleagues may be interested in an output from the second DCC-RIN Research Data Management Forum: "Skilling Up to Do Data: Whose Role, Whose Responsibility, Whose Career?" which is published in the current edition of the International Journal of Digital Curation (http://www.ijdc.net)

Abstract:

What are the roles necessary to effective data management and what kinds of expertise are needed by the researchers and data specialists who are filling those roles? These questions were posed at a workshop of data creators and curators whose delegates challenged the DCC and RIN to identify the training needs and career opportunities for the broad cohort that finds itself working in data management – sometimes by design but more often by accident. This paper revisits previous investigations into the roles and responsibilities required by a "data workforce", presents a representative spectrum of informed opinion from the DCC Research Data Management Forum, and makes some recommendations for raising capability, capacity and status.

Best regards,

Martin.

Web archiving and data management

Web archives need to become a seamless part of the experience of using the web; they are the web's corporate memory. This thought encapsulated much of the spirit of a conference that I attended on 21 July on the enduring web, an event organised by JISC, the Digital Preservation Coalition and the UK Web Archiving Consortium.

The conference was a well illustrated overview of the challenges facing the development of a usable and resilient infrastructure for ensuring the perenniality of web content. Quite a task actually, and I was particularly interested in the arguments relating to what material to select in the first place for archiving and preservation. Of course, decisions about what to keep and what to discard have long been everyday stuff for archivists, but when applied to the dynamic, restless and often ephemeral nature of web content, the challenge is particularly acute. Since much web activity is about illustrating work in progress and preserving discourse, to what extent should archiving be documenting the authorial and editing processes?

I was struck by how much such issues resemble those relating to data management. A number of questions facing data archivists should also be familiar to data creators and managers: questions relating to selection, as mentioned above, but also to the curation of material which constantly changes as it is enriched and reformulated; which always stands the risk of being lost forever because it is not properly looked after; and which is not always properly recognised as a scholarly output. Interestingly, the analogy with data management was not made at the meeting, which was attended essentially by librarians and archivists (I had to leave early; perhaps the issue was raised at the end of the day). Could web archivists and data managers learn from each other? Are they actually talking to each other?

Special Workshops at Repository Fringe 2009

Two special workshops for repository managers and others interested in data curation are to take place during Beyond the Repository Fringe,
30-31 July, University of Edinburgh.

Please sign up in advance through the event registration form (URL below). No fee is required.

1) DISC-UK DataShare Workshop
Data Requirements and Digital Repositories, 2-5pm, Thursday, 30 July.

This workshop will be based upon the DISC-UK DataShare project's Policy-making for Research Data in Repositories: A Guide. The guide is intended to be used as a decision making and planning tool for institutions with digital repositories in existence or in development that are considering adding research datasets to their digital collections. It also can help articulate the benefits of sound data management practices as well as the goals of data sharing and long term access.
Contact: robin.rice@ed.ac.uk.

2) Digital Curation Centre Associates Network Workshop Digital Curation 101 'Lite' 10am - 1pm, Friday 31 July

Research Councils and funding bodies are increasingly requiring evidence of adequate and appropriate provisions for data management and curation in new grant funding applications. This half-day workshop delivered by the Digital Curation Centre is aimed at researchers and those who support researchers and want to learn more about how to develop sound data management and curation plans. The workshop will provide a brief introduction to digital curation, the range of activities and roles that should be considered when planning and implementing new projects, and an overview of tools that can assist with curation activities.
Contact: info@dcc.ac.uk

For further information about the two workshops see http://wiki.repositoryfringe.org/index.php/The_Sessions#Special_Events

Contributions are still welcome for the event. Register at http://beyondtherepositoryfringe.eventbrite.com/


Beyond the Repository Fringe 2009

Place: Informatics Forum, University of Edinburgh
Date: 30th/31st July 2009
Home page: http://www.repositoryfringe.org
Wiki: http://wiki.repositoryfringe.org/
Email: rf09@ed.ac.uk
Hashtag: #RF09

Sponsored by JISC, the Beyond the Repository Fringe 2009 event will be hosted by the University of Edinburgh with support from the Digital Curation Centre, the School of Informatics, EDINA, and Information Services, as well as UKOLN and EPrints.

Keynote speakers are Ben O'Steen & Sally Rumsey, and Clifford Lynch.

The Policy-making for Research Data in Repositories: A Guide
is intended to be used as a decision-making and planning tool for
institutions with digital repositories in existence or in development
that are considering adding research data to their digital collections.

The guide is a public deliverable of the JISC-funded DISC-UK DataShare
project (2007-2009), http://www.disc-uk.org/datashare.html, which
established institutional data repositories and related services at the
partner institutions: the Universities of Edinburgh, Oxford and
Southampton. It is a distilled result of the experience of the partners,
together with Digital Life Cycle Research & Consulting. The guide is one
way of sharing our experience with the wider community, as more
institutions expand their digital repository services into the realm of
research data to meet the demands of researchers who are themselves
facing increasing requirements of funders to make their data available
for continuing access.

Policy-making for Research Data in Repositories: A Guide can be downloaded from:
http://www.disc-uk.org/docs/guide.pdf

Stuart Macdonald
DISC-UK DataShare
EDINA National Data Library

RDMF follow-up re. data citation

Some of you may have seen David Shotton's message re. semantic publishing/data citations/DOIs etc -
(http://imageweb.zoo.ox.ac.uk/pub/2008/publication/Shotton_Articles_on_Semantic_Publishing.pdf)

The following 'enhanced' article is a fine example of how data can be cited, accessed, with implications for accreditation etc - http://imageweb.zoo.ox.ac.uk/pub/2008/plospaper/latest/
- the paper "includes interactive figures, mashups with Google Maps and with data from related publications, live links to full-text references, downloadable datasets in Excel files relating to figures in the paper, downloadable RDF metadata files describing the publication and the references it cites, and a separate Document Summary, all with their own DOIs." Is it a criticism to say that it is too interactive!

Stuart Macdonald
RIN Disciplinary Case Studies - http://dcc.ac.uk/case-studies-in-life-sciences/
EDINA National Data Centre & Edinburgh University Data Library

Agenda for RDMF3 (April 30th - May1st 2009)

Hello all.

Just in case the mailing list cross-postings have slipped under the radar, the agenda for the next DCC-RIN Research Data Management Forum, on the theme of Value and Benefits of Data Sharing and Management, is now available online via http://www.dcc.ac.uk/data-forum/

Event registration is also available at this site.

Please note that delegate numbers are limited, so early registration is strongly advised.

Best wishes,

Martin.

DCC-RIN Research Data Management Forum - registration now open

The next DCC-RIN Research Data Management Forum meeting will be held at Chancellors Hotel and Conference Centre, Manchester on Thursday 30th April and Friday 1st May 2009.

The event's theme will be "Values and Benefits of Data Sharing and Management"

The event will be of particular interest to researchers, digital repository managers, staff from library, information and research organisations, data curators, data centre managers, data scientists, research funding organisations and research networks.

We anticipate a 5pm start on the Thursday, finishing up around 4.15pm on the Friday, but you may wish to wait for the final agenda before booking your travel. This will be released shortly.

Please note that delegate numbers are limited; online registration is now open at http://www.dcc.ac.uk/events/data-forum-2009-april/

e-Merging New Roles and Responsibilities in the European Landscape

* Apologies for cross-posting *

e-Merging New Roles and Responsibilities in the European Landscape Workshop 17 April at the KB, The Hague Netherlands.

Aim

This workshop aims to develop a basic understanding of the issues presented by long-term digital curation and preservation of resources which are (to be) deposited in institutional and subject-based repositories – both within research institutions and research communities. It will highlight the state of the art in digital curation and will cover best practices, including possibilities for outsourcing.

Target groups

Policy makers and managers of digital objects within libraries and research institutions, a.o. research librarians, directors of research institutions, repository managers and middle management; publishers are also invited.

Learning objectives

Participants have a general understanding of current approaches to long-term preservation of digital objects in an international context

Participants are aware of the increasing complexity of digital objects and of the currently accepted solutions for long-term preservation and access

Participants are able to assess the preconditions for implementing long-term preservation within their own organisation – both in terms of policy, technical infrastructure and organisational development

Participants are familiar with the existing network of expertise.

Registration fee: Members of LIBER pay only € 125; after March 16th the registration fee will be € 150.

Non-members of LIBER pay € 175; after March 16th the registration fee will be € 200.This fee includes all drinks and lunch.

Further details of the workshop including the programme, registration form are available at http://www.kb.nl/hrd/congressen/curatingresearch2009/index-en.xml

Data Movement and Management

An interesting event, available via webinar for those unable to travel to the Pacific Northwest...

Data Movement and Management
A NISO Pre-ACRL Forum

Modern libraries consist of a variety of complicated data systems, many containing a portion of the data needed to address any specific question. Often data needs to be extracted from one system and moved to or compared with information in another. Frequently, these systems don’t communicate well. This in-person conference will explore a number of ongoing data transfer and transformation consensus projects. Whether it is collections or holdings information distributed via ONIX, financial data via CORE, or usage data via SUSHI, the community is working on strategies and structures to easily transition data from one system to another. Each of these initiatives will contribute to saving librarians time and eventually money in managing their operations. Themes: General Issues, Cataloging, Collection Management, Library Management Level: Intermediate to advanced

>> http://www.niso.org/news/events/2009/datamovement09

Effective data management:: Working together

The current edition of RINews carries an account of the most recent Research Data Management Forum meeting. Check it out at http://www.rin.ac.uk/files/RINews-issue7-Winter08.pdf

Data stewardship in Canada

The Canadian Research Data Strategy Working Group has just produced a gap analysis of research data stewardship in Canada. It's worth a look, as it points to many problems and challenges that we are all too familiar with on this side of the Atlantic, not least the barriers to effective data sharing/dissemination that the report lists.

Data management advice the UKDA way

Some of you may be aware of this already, but I recently came across a useful resource which underlines much of what was covered at the last Forum meeting in November. The UKDA website includes a set of well-written advice pages on sharing and managing data, including some bits on advice and training. Although it's obviously geared for social sciences researchers, most of the material is sufficiently generic to apply to data management across most disciplines. See http://www.data-archive.ac.uk/sharing/sharing.asp for info.

RDMF2: Core Skills Diagram

Here's the draft version of a diagram we've put together to reflect the core skills for research data management - another outcome of RDMF2, which informed the breakout groups summarised in an earlier post.

[click on the image for a larger version]

It would be good to hear your views on this, particularly the crossover points (i.e. those skills which span two or more job 'types').

So let's have your comments below, or alternatively email martin.donnelly@ed.ac.uk

And best wishes for the festive season!

Notes from breakout groups now available

The raw notes from last month's Forum breakout groups are now online at the RDMF section of the DCC website.

These will form the basis of the group's recommendations and outcomes, to follow in the New Year.

The notes are fairly rough and ready, but there could well be the germ of a great idea or two contained within...

Research Data Management Forum: Roles & Responsibilities

The second RDMF workshop, again held in Manchester last week, was on roles and responsibilities in the management of data. We heard from the ubiquitous Andrew Treloar yesterday evening, relating the Australian data (and other) developments to those in the UK. Key to responsibilities there is the Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research, which I wrote about before in the Digital Curation Blog: this puts complementary obligations onto researchers and their institutions in the retention and management of their data (incidentally, the RCUK consultation on similar matters ended on October 24; I gather we might get a result by next May or so). I do like the system-wide coherence of design of the Platforms for Collaboration in Australia, of which the Australian National Data Service (ANDS) is one part.

Thursday morning, Alma Swan has been talking about the Key Perspectives report (Swan & Brown, 2008) on skills and career structures for data curators and data scientists. Lots of good information here, although a pretty bleak picture. The grouping they use is:

Data creators/authors
Data scientists
Data managers
Data librarians.

Stephen Lawrie of Edinburgh, as a research scientist (and data creator) in the field of Neuroscience, taking the research scientist’s view (his group has been working with the DCC SCARP project, and applying the DRAMBORA risk assessment tool). Their group has around 2,000 sMRI scans and 800 fMRI scans, taken on two different scanners (the source of some of their problems), some of which are unique resources. Their High Risk study into schizophrenia has been gathering data from people with family indications of pre-disposition, from age 16 (average age of onset is 25), coupling the MRI images with lots of other measures and indicators. Angus Whyte of DCC SCRP has written a report (Whyte, 2008) with some significant recommendations in this area. Although instrument makers appear not to be interested in harmonising their data, but rather in innovating, the field is attempting to develop post-processing capabilities that will harmonise that heterogeneous data.

Helen Parkinson of EBI as a data scientist and biocurator. Data scientists do real research, but may never touch the lab equipment. Nice quote on biocurators as the museum cataloguers of the Internet age; but not passive curators; they want to slice and dice, combine and re-use these data. (see PLoS article (Bourne & McEntyre, 2006) ). Talks about the data explosion and new types of data over the last 5 years. Both Helen and Stephen mention the key role of ontologies. Genomics field benefiting from the Bermuda Rules, where an article cannot be published without the accession number for data deposit in the appropriate database. (this does of course mean extra pressure on the curators: “my Nature paper deadline is tomorrow, I need that accession number right now!”) Her particular area is ArrayExpress, on transcriptomics data. Run a public/private data archive, a public gene data slice `(which may be re-annotated), and another one I didn't catch (see the slides when they get mounted!). They seem to see curation as effectively a quality process, but added value aspects as annotation, mapping to ontology terms etc.

Robin Rice as data librarian. See Wikipedia definition of data library. Mentions IASSIST as an organisation of about 300 or so data libraries (or their equivalents) in the social sciences. Also DISC-UK as a small support group for information specialists in the UK. More personal help on campus than a virtual helpdesk? Services include helping with finding, accessing, using, and managing datasets. Data librarians could do more to hep data creators. Refers back to the Leona Carpenter (Carpenter, 2004) definitions used by the DCC: data creators, data curators, and data re-users.

Sam Pepler of BADC as Data Manager, or “plumber” (“piping data from one place to another, ensuring data flows properly and that valuable are not lost” Swan?). Mentions several staff members fitting in the data manager box: storage coordinator, development manager, developer, infrastructure manager, climate modeller/domain expert. Looking at these people, their origins and current roles, it is clear that there is no career structure here (yet). No clear line between system admin, software developer and data manager, although separating data managers and maintainers is important.

Sheila Corrall on the education and training implications. Combination needed of domain expertise, technical skills (in data management) and people skills (in “translating” roles). Overlapping roles: content specialists, conduit specialists, and context specialists. Suggesting a federated model with disciplinary centres and librarians, and I guess local laboratories. Makes the good point that papers in repositories are pretty similar technically (give or take the PDF/Word/LaTeX continuum), but datasets are extremely heterogeneous (eg multiple scale factors, widely different encodings, standards and description/metadata standards).

In the afternoon, three breakout groups aiming to come up with recommendations to JISC, to the Research Information Network, to the DCC, and to research funders: I think these recommendations are worth getting right, in terms of wording, and will be made available later after a bit of careful wordsmithing.


Bourne, P. E., & McEntyre, J. (2006). Biocurators: Contributors to the World of Science. PLoS Computational Biology, 2(10), e142.

Carpenter, L. (2004). Taxonomy of digital curation users Bath: Digital Curation Centre.

Swan, A., & Brown, S. (2008). The Skills, Role and Career Structure of Data Scientists and Curators: an Assessment of Current Practice and Future Needs: Key Perspectives.

Whyte, A. (2008). Curating Brain Images in a Psychiatric Research Group.

Reading for RDMF?

James Mullins's paper "Enabling International Access to Scientific Data Sets" may provide food for thought ahead of this month's second RDMF meeting.

Thoughts re. other suggested readings? Let us know via the comments, below.

Trusted Repository in the Clouds?

You may have seen that Microsoft has unveiled a cloud computing service, in which data and applications will not be stored on individuals' computers – (reported 27th October at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7693993.stm). The new platform, dubbed Windows Azure, was announced at Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles as "Windows for the cloud". It will be offered alongside the next Windows release, Windows 7.

It is not surprising to see Microsoft taking on established players like Google and Amazon in the rapidly growing business of online software. One may ask, however, what guarantees Microsoft is likely to provide for the continued storage and preservation of data stored in the cloud. Consumers will already have asked similar questions when archiving their photographs or personal data files in online vaults.

As Gavin Clarke has reported (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10/28/microsoft_blocks_azure_traffic/), if applications posted to the Azure services platform exceed their allocated storage or processing hours, users may actually be turned away. But never mind, while you might not be able to sign up new customers or do any business with your data, Microsoft will look after them. It has promised not to dump data. So that’s ok then.

LIBRARIES THE FUTURE FOR DATA MANAGEMENT?

A colleague drew my attention today to the service being offered by the MIT Libraries, namely, to help MIT faculty and researchers manage and publish their data – see http://libraries.mit.edu/guides/subjects/data-management/index.html. I did wonder for a moment whether this was a case of the old data/information conundrum but no, they really do mean data, and they’re not talking in terms merely of research papers.

Interestingly, MIT Libraries don’t claim to provide all the necessary resources, but to describe them, giving links to established national data repositories, for example - an approach that would fit nicely with the umbrella solution described in the UKRDS interim report (accessible from http://www.ukrds/ac.uk).

I’d be interested to know how many of the UK’s university libraries are offering resources for managing research data throughout their lifecycle – or even how many have plans to offer that service. Or is everyone awaiting the outcomes from the UKRDS study before making a commitment?